Prepaid Potential

Have you ever rented a car and prepaid the fuel just so you wouldn’t have the hassle of gassing up the rental on the way to the airport? After all, it’s never fun trying to find the closest gas station to the interstate in a city you aren’t familiar with while you’re already running late for your flight. Sometimes the convenience is well worth the “risk” of purchasing gas you might not use.

Even so, as the end of your trip draws near and you still have a half a tank of gas left over, there is a sense of guilt and waste because of the extra fuel you didn’t need to buy. If you are like me, you feel the urge to drive out of your way just to use up as much of the gas as possible. I come up with excuses to add some extra miles, wasting my time, just so I won’t “waste” my fuel. It seems like such a shame to hand over that rental car with a half-filled tank of gas that I “sacrificed” to purchase.

Unfortunately, I am not always as conscientious when it comes to my own opportunities and potential. It seems I am too willing to waste an opportunity and turn in a project or an effort with plenty of unused potential still inside. I often don’t run myself to empty before delivering the talents and tasks I have “rented.”

Sure, I may not have personally “purchased” that potential but someone sure did. Countless humans made immeasurable sacrifices so you and I could have the opportunities and chances the generations before us couldn’t have even imagined. The circumstances and conveniences you enjoy came at a price. The freedom in this country that makes any and all of it possible was very costly indeed. In what other time or place could you start up a business with no college degree, on an invisible medium of information exchange that you can’t touch or hold, and make $100k a year in your basement sitting in your underwear?!?

Anyone born before this time and most of the world’s population today would love to have the freedoms and opportunities we ignore and waste on a regular basis. You are “renting” this body, this shell, for your trip here on earth. It is your vehicle to take you through this journey and it is full of immense, powerful potential. Potential that was prepaid by others. So before you are finished with your rental, do your best to make sure you turn it in on E.

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